“Team8 is a great example of
how Israel has some of the best talent in the world to confront these
challenges through its ability to develop advanced and creative
solutions for this rapidly evolving landscape.”

“Global cybersecurity threats are only becoming more targeted, frequent,
and destructive in nature, so we’re fortunate to be partnering with
Team8, who is at the forefront of new cutting-edge cybersecurity
innovation,” said Eric Schmidt, founding partner of Innovation
Endeavors and executive chairman of Google. “Team8 is a great example of
how Israel has some of the best talent in the world to confront these
challenges through its ability to develop advanced and creative
solutions for this rapidly evolving landscape."

New Model

The Team8 foundry is a platform for building and launching cybersecurity
companies from scratch. At the core of the foundry is a technology
research group that acts as an operational “think tank,” carrying out
extensive, practical research that incorporates offensive and defensive
expertise. Team8 has assembled a unique pool of talent, and applies
proven methods for tackling the most challenging cybersecurity problems.
Team8 also recruits experienced entrepreneurs to partner with technical
teams, and plans to inject the capital, resources, expertise, and talent
they need at every phase to launch successful startups.

"With the escalation of cyber conflicts, the world needs
inter-disciplinary teams of the very best talent to formulate new
approaches to security," said Team8 Co-founder Nadav Zafrir. "Over the
past year, Team8 has developed a unique model to tackle the toughest
problems, inventing disruptive technologies that are commercialized
through the creation of new startup companies."

Experienced Team

The founding team is composed of accomplished entrepreneurs and cyber
innovation executives. Nadav Zafrir and Israel Grimberg, known figures
in the Israeli cyber innovation space, co-founded Team8 together with
Liran Grinberg, an entrepreneur and product management expert (eToro,
Conduit). Team8’s technology research group is led by cyber research
veteran, Assaf Mischari. Ray Rothrock, an investor and board member of
Check Point Software Technologies, is joining Team8’s board of
directors. A special advisor to the team is Ronni Zehavi, a former
security executive at Akamai Technologies who previously founded Cotendo
(acquired by Akamai).

“In 22 years of investing in phenomenal entrepreneurs, I have never seen
as strong a group of security talent as I’ve seen within Team8,” said
BVP partner David Cowan, who co-founded VeriSign, Good Technology, and
Defense.net, and led early venture rounds in more than 30 cybersecurity
companies. “Having personally witnessed early simplistic attacks evolve
into organized crime and nation-sponsored advanced persistent threats
(APTs), I believe defense requires a deep, first-hand understanding of
the cutting-edge cyber techniques and processes. Team8 clearly has this
understanding. No other private sector team understands this as deeply
as Team8.”

Strategic Partners

The Team8 platform is further enhanced by strategic research and
engineering collaborations with industry leaders, such as Cisco and
Alcatel-Lucent (including Alcatel-Lucent’s leading industrial research
arm, Bell Labs); both are among the platform’s investors.

Bell Labs teams across the globe will collaborate with Team8 on various
security challenges. This will include close collaboration between Team8
and Bell Labs researchers working at a cloud and security facility near
Tel Aviv, Israel, and represents the first major industry collaboration
since the facility was officially opened in December 2014.

Marcus Weldon, President of Bell Labs and CTO, Alcatel-Lucent said: “As
we enter the era where our lives are digitized and everything is
connected via IP networks, it is critical that we increase the security
of these networks and systems. We need to know that sensitive and
private data is protected and any breach discovered and remediated
before any damage is done. The Bell Labs team in Israel will be
collaborating closely with Team8 to both detect and then remediate even
the most sophisticated attacks, leveraging the unique expertise of Team8
and Bell Labs.”

Seeking Talent

The first Team8 company - still in stealth mode - is led by Check Point
veteran Ofer Israeli and focuses on mitigating targeted attacks and
advanced persistent threats (APTs). Team8 and its companies are
currently recruiting exceptional talent. Team8 also invites exceptional
entrepreneurs to join forces on building new cybersecurity companies.

Exceptional leaders and entrepreneurs work with Team8 via an Entrepreneur-In-Residence
(EIR) model, working out of the company’s Tel Aviv headquarters to
explore, ideate, and validate new concepts, hand-in-hand with Team8’s
leaders and extended network. All EIRs have access to Team8’s domain
expertise, research, marketing, business development, and top talent
recruiting capabilities. Team8 funds this process, giving entrepreneurs
the time and resources needed for the development of fundamental
research into differentiated solutions and long-term, independent
companies that solve real market needs.

Yuval Shahar, Partner at Marker LLC and Innovation Endeavors said: "For
the last couple of years I've been considering new models for initiating
and building start-up companies to tap into Israeli know-how and
intellect. I’m convinced that Team8 has the right team and model to
fulfill this aspiration."

About Team8

Team8 is a cyber “think tank” focused on developing disruptive
technologies and launching new cybersecurity companies. Team8 provides
the capital, research, expertise, network and talent to startup teams
tackling the toughest cybersecurity challenges. Team8 was founded by
leading Israeli cyber executives and is backed by Cisco, Alcatel-Lucent,
Bessemer Venture Partners, Innovation Endeavors and Marker LLC. For more
information, please visit www.team8.vc.